Fitness Foodie

5 days in Malta | Day 3

We decided to join a half day tour to visit the infamous Blue Grotto and Marsalokk fishing village. We were told that it was best to visit Marsalokk on a Sunday because that’s the only day when the market is opened.

We departed St Julians at 9.10am (we actually missed our alarm and woke up at 9.03am, and got ready within 7 mins – record timing!!)

We arrived at an extremely picturesque spot, where we were in full view of the beautiful Blue Grotto!

It is called the Blue Grotto because you can see the light reflections from the cave, allowing you to see different shades of blue in the crystal clear water.

Fact of the day: parts of the film Troy was filmed here!

We then spotted these unique little trees and thought they looked very cute.

During the tour, we had the opportunity to go on a quick 20-minutes boat tour, which actually took us inside the caves.

During the boat tour, we went under a massive arch of a cave and spotted an amazing bright cobalt colour, where light has hit the water. The rocks were stained purple, green and orange. I’ve never seen anything like it before, it was an absolutely spectacular view! But be sure to go in the morning as it is the only time you can see the cobalt blue water, because the sun is lower in the sky.

The next stop was the Marsalokk fishing village. The coach journey took around 30 minutes from the Blue Grotto to Marsalokk. We walked through the market, but to be honest it wasn’t too interesting as lots of stalls were selling normal things that you can get in a supermarket. But there were also some jewellery, handbags and shoe stalls.

The eyes on this boat is the equivalent of an evil eye in Malta. It means to keep evil spirits away.

As the village was famous for its fresh seafood, we decided to hit a nice spot for lunch. We did our homework beforehand and looked up the No.1 restaurant on TripAdvisor in Marsalokk – Tartarun.

For starters, we shared a prawn carpaccio. Even though I am writing this blog post 2 months later, I still remember the exact taste of this dish! It was delicately delicious. The carpaccio was combined with olive oil, which gave it a great texture.

We also ordered fish soup which was rich and fresh. One of the best fish soups I’ve ever had!

For our mains we got the catch of the day, which was the black spotted bream and the pandora fish. We had to take it to go as we didn’t have enough time to finish our meal and had to rush for the bus. But… we ended up missing the bus anyway.

Deciding to make the most of our time, we took the local bus from Marsalokk to Valetta, the capital of Malta. The journey took around 40 minutes. We entered from Valetta’s city gates on Republic Street.

I really liked the vibe of the city. It wasn’t too crowded and the streets were really wide, which made the walk very relaxing. The buildings had an old rustic feel to it and the city itself had incredible architecture.

I found this cute little evil eye bracelet which was far too big for my wrists, so I wore it as an anklet!

We also stubbled across this very talented man who made messages in a bottle with sand! He told us it was a family business and that he’d been maintaining it for 30 years now!

After exploring Valetta, we caught the bus back to St Julians, which took around 15-20 minutes.

My friend bravely decided to have a go at fly boarding! We’ve seen this water sport in Hong Kong before last summer, but due to extremely high interest and it being quite a new sport, it was practically impossible to book a session. But in Malta, it was cheaper and more accessible so she decided to give it a go!

I am sure a lot of you must be wondering if it is hard to get up in the air, or if it is really dangerous. My friend is a wakeboarder and is used to bending her knees when she’s on a board, whereas fly boarding actually requires your legs to be completely straight. So people with no prior experience to any type of board-related sport might actually find this easier! The instructors also provided her with a headset, where they continuously gave her instructions about what to do, so it was pretty safe. It is actually more dangerous for experienced fly boarders than novices because they are more likely to get injured when they do flips and tricks.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant right next to our hotel called Scappi’s. The food was again really delicious. It is quite a new restaurant, so there hasn’t been many reviews on TripAdvisor. The only criticism from me would be their dessert. We ordered a banoffee cake and a red velvet cake. But the red velvet cake tasted nothing like I would have expected (as you could probably tell from the picture below).

Overall, it was a very fulfilling day in Malta! One of the best actually, even though we did manage to miss our bus from Marsalokk… Though we wouldn’t have visited Valetta if it wasn’t for that – so I see it as a blessing in disguise!